(You think that’s impressive? You should see how Hughes handles a rhino.)

Fact: Matt Hughes loves hunting. Loves it. And whether you stand on the “hunting is for sociopaths” or the “guns are the only thing keeping giant underground worms from invading the earth” side of the issue, you gotta respect the former welterweight champion’s dedication to slaying every beast this earth has to offer, except for the most dangerous game, that is. In either case, Hughes recently partook in a South African hunting expedition with his son Joey, and the results look like what you would expect an Oregon Trail novice to haul in on his first Buffalo hunt. A lot of things were killed is what we’re saying. But before you jump on Hughes for blatantly wasting such delicious Zebra meat or being an ignorant redneck (we’re looking at you, Dan Hardy), know that the meat from animals hunted in African safaris is often donated to local villages in need, and the hefty licensing fees guys like Hughes have to pay to legally hunt such game help fund the nation’s conservation efforts. In other words: Fuck yeah guns!!

-J. Jones

(If you must ask, Dana, I believe my hype train was headed in that general direction. Then again, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it…) 

If you’re anything like us, you’ve more than likely spent your weekend drinking either Budweiser or Miller High Life cans in front of your television whilst watching various Olympic events and screaming “America!” on loop until your Canadian or Russian neighbors got jealous and called the police, who in turn tried to claim that you are somehow at fault if you like to watch TV in the nude and can’t afford curtains. And indeed, the Olympics have successfully managed to captivate and connect its viewing audience as it always does, uniting entire communities over a common passion. Except, oddly enough, in the case of this year’s host country, wherein failure apparently opens you up to disturbingly hateful critiques from your own countrymen.

Switching gears, it seems that one thing we can all agree on, regardless of our cultural divisions, is the inherent ridiculousness in the possibility that Brandon Vera could somehow receive a title shot if he is able to defeat Mauricio Rua in impressive fashion, or vice versa. We know we’ve been a little hard on him today – it’s not like it was his decision to overhype a fight by implying title implications only to be reamed out by fans for doing so shortly thereafter, that was Dana White — but on the short list of contenders currently in the Light Heavyweight Division, Vera is just a step above Mostapha al-Turk, whom you may recall is a retired heavyweight who was released from the UFC over two years ago. And he’s fighting Shogun f*cking Rua, aka the man who ended The Machida Era. Arguably twice. 

Spoiler: There is no way in hell that Vera is beating Shogun this Saturday, and we’d be willing to wager a bottle of ipecac on it, if you know what we mean. So in honor of what has been a highly competitive Olympic games thus far, and what will surely be a one sided ass whooping at UFC on FOX 4, here are 10 things, ranked in no particular order, we will more than likely see happen at this year’s Olympics than “The Truth” beating “Shogun” on Saturday.

 
(Serra needs a better hypeman.)

Jason "J-Dog" Wright worked his ass off getting us dozens of photos from Saturday night’s UFC 119 event, and we’re hell bent on getting them all uploaded onto the site for you to marvel at.

Here’s the latest batch of Jason’t shots of the guys and girls at the show in Indianapolis, Indiana last weekend.

Enjoy!

Pics are after the jump.

("You want the winner of Koscheck-GSP?")

Here’s another story that illustrates why the Potato Nation is awesome.

Jason Wright (or J-Dog as he is known around these parts) contacted us about a month ago to see if we needed a photographer to cover UFC 119 for us. Since CagePotato had never been credentialed, we figured with the success of our UFC Fan Expo booth (which was due largely to the help of CP’ers ReX13 and Viva Hate) now is as good a time as any to apply.

(Props: these guys, who should really look into a less obnoxious watermark for their photos. Just saying.)

Well, Anderson Silva is officially dead to Wanderlei Silva now.  Here he is training Rich Franklin, who will fight “The Axe Murderer” at UFC 99 in Germany, and also presumably whispering to him about where to find the secret Brazilian “off-switch” to put Wanderlei’s lights out.  Hint: it’s located somewhere in the chin region.  In the past Brazilians have often balked at the idea of training a foreigner to fight one of their countrymen, but Anderson is like Bruce Lee: he teaches whoever wants to learn.  Especially if that person is about to fight someone he’s not particularly fond of at the moment.

(Photos courtesy of YRB via MMAFightGirls. Click all pics for larger versions.)

“I fought it; it’s a label. If you are going to label me, label me as Gina Carano. Right now, I am just going to keep doing my thing, and if you want to call me this or that it’s fine. I know I am recognized, and I feel confident about the things I have done in the sport so far. I could stop today and show my kids someday, ‘Look at what I did.’ I’m not going to buy into the pressure…you’re like something one second and nothing the next second. I can’t put my value or weight in any of it.”
— Gina Carano on being called "the face of women’s MMA." Check out the rest of YRB Magazine‘s new profile on Gina here.

After the jump, we do some more stalking of Arianny Celeste’s twitpic account…

In honor of this weekend’s Strikeforce event we bring you possibly the hottest girl ever to carry a numbered sign for the San Jose, California-based organization, Maysa Quy.  You might remember her from Fight! Magazine’s Hottest Ring Girl of 2008 contest, which is where the above picture comes from.  According to this interview she loves Janet Jackson and thinks "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is the greatest movie of all time.  According to her MySpace page her current mood is "delerious."  So there you go. 

Whether Maysa made the jump to the big time along with Strikeforce, or whether they’ll try for some new blood on Showtime, we have no idea.  But we think it might be wise of them to retain her services.

(Sure, when I try to take photos of the Octagon Girls getting dressed it’s "creepy," but when Arianny does the same thing it’s fun and whimsical. It figures. Photo courtesy of MissAriannyCeleste.com)

You might remember a while back when we posted UFC Octagon girl Arianny Celeste’s profile video for the Maxim “Hometown Hotties” competition and she mentioned her aspirations to be a rock/pop singer.  Intrepid Cage Potato reader Maxwell discovered that Arianny now has her own MySpace music page, which has, as of this writing, all of two songs on it.

I’d say rock/pop is a fair description of the genre.   Her songs are about on par with the cookie-cutter stuff you hear on the radio, though she doesn’t quite hit all the notes at times, so maybe they should add a little of that T-Pain effect to smooth it out.  As Maxwell points out, her song “Superficial” seems, shall we say, heavily “influenced” by this Avril Lavigne joint.

Arianny would be the first to make a successful jump from Octagon girl to pop sensation, and there’s probably a good reason you don’t see much crossover between those careers.  For one, they appeal to different demographics.  Dudes may ogle ring girls and buy magazines with pictures of them, but those same dudes are probably not buying Avril Lavigne CD’s (except the guys at Fightlinker, who like anything Canadian, even Alan Thicke).  But hey, she’s off to a good start with the MySpace music page.  They don’t let just anyone put their music on the internet.

vs.

(The Buff clocks in to do a little work.  I don’t know about you guys, but I’m feeling kind of sexy.  I have no idea why.)

I’m sure you couldn’t tell from my post-party report, but I have to confess here that I am not a professional photographer.  I know, you had no idea, but it’s the truth.  The good news is that Combat Lifestyle’s Tracy Lee is a professional photographer and she was also at the party capturing all the action I missed, and doing so using a camera that was not the cheapest one she could find at Best Buy three years ago. 

To put it more succinctly, her photos are much better than mine.  Some of my personal favorites are after the jump, but you can head over to her UFC 96 pre-party gallery and see them all.

Apologies if you’ve seen these photos before, but they were new to us. Props to F-Listed (via Holy Taco) and MissAriannyCeleste.com.

(An excuse to post this picture again?  Why not.)

Round 5 sent out a press release today announcing Gina Carano as the newest addition to their stable of fighters willing to be made into disproportionate MMA action figures.  Carano is the first female fighter to sign on with Round 5, and they expect her figure to drop along with their fourth series this summer.

In the release Carano says the normal stuff about how excited she is to be a part of this, so on and so forth, and then there’s this: “When I was a little girl my dad always joked about making a ‘Gina doll’ and I smile when I think it has become a reality.”  

He joked about making a doll of his daughter?  As in, for her?  Or just, you know, to have around the house, in case anything happened to the original?  I don’t get it, but I find it vaguely troubling.

Props to MMA Weekly, UFC.com, The Sun, and the “UFC 95: The Aftermath” set on Combat Lifestyle.                       

Not a bad way to start your morning: Gina Carano has taken advantage of her current unemployment by posing for a new set of pics in Maxim. Check out her "My First Times" interview here, in which Crush/Conviction discusses her first fight inside the ring, her first fight outside the ring, and her first kiss. ("It didn’t smell good.")

Previously: 
Gina Carano Strips Off: The Video
Tonya Evinger Is a Bad Influence

Props to TheSun, Sherdog, MMAWeekly, and UFC.com. If you missed Saturday’s liveblog, click here.

(Mr. and Mrs. New York Bad Ass)

Congratulations, you crazy kids. I hope she knows what she’s getting herself into. Check out the full wedding photo gallery at Combat Lifestyle. You can even play the classic game: Where’s War Machine? It’s the game where, when you win, you immediately wish you’d never played.

(In all fairness, the rearview mirror is knocked off just like Dana White said.)

- How the physical evidence matches up with Dana White’s insistence that Rampage Jackson did not cause a woman to have a miscarriage. (Fightlinker)

- Photos of Kenny Florian and Jon Fitch working out pre-UFC 87. (Combat Lifestyle)

- Takanori Gomi has a public training session. (Suki MMA)

- MMA agent talks marketing and fight game economics (Xtreme Couture)

- The UFC’s hard sell of Jon Fitch. (MMA Payout)

- GSP’s trainer raps with Ariel Helwani. (MMA Rated)

- Clips from Fedor’s instructional DVD. (MMA Scraps)

- Clay Aiken allegedly fathers a baby boy…somehow. (Holy Taco)

- The great investment opportunities that can be found on Ebay. (Wall Street Fighter)

(Wandy’s triumph; courtesy of UFC.com)

(Penn outboxes Sherk; courtesy of Sherdog)

(Tito Ortiz comes within a ball-hair of submitting Lyoto Machida; courtesy of Las Vegas Sun)

(Michael Jackson takes in the fights; courtesy of TMZ)

#10. Keith “Satan” Jardine assaults Chuck Liddell

#9. Gina Carano weighs in